Ghosts
by Elendil
Summary: The mutant Dark Cloak, aka Gary Davis [from the story Sins of the Father], and Psylocke in the Danger Room. A smidgen of violence, nothing too serious. Mildly humorous and dark all in one. This is a piece of a storyline we'd created that does not follow t


  
  
Note: This was co-written and edited by myself and the beguiling Psylocke/Jessica   
  


Gary Davis crouched on the floor of the Danger Room, his ebony cloak pooling around his feet. Sun-yellow energy blades sprouted from the ends of his balled fists, reminiscent of Psylocke's psyblade. Speaking of Betsy, who had termed his swordsmanship as 'in need of remedial classes for his remedial classes', he frowns, having spent the better part of an hour combatting these ridiculous training holograms. Parrying. Feinting. Jabbing. Dodging. It was all bunk, as far as he was concerned. A swordsman who used a cutlass, saber, epee, kitana, or whatever would need such instruction. He did not use a normal sword though, and required a wholly different fighting style. He didn't even use them for one-on-one fighting, they were more for a lightning-fast strike, used in conjunction with his moving about as phased energy.

  


Betsy Braddock lounged, cat-like, across the plush chair that was the main seat of the Danger Room's control center, with a hand to her temples and a harassed look upon her face. The speaker button was pushed down all on it's own -or with help from Betsy's nascent telekinetics - and her voice issues into the room. "Durr.. Gary, you look like a duck crouched like that. Graceful. -Graceful.-"

  


Gary muttered something totally inaudible, much less understandable under his breath, springing from his crouch in an offensive posture. Gary was not wholly negligent in his upkeep of his skills, but his disciplines lacked, leaving himself open at times, attacking where he should not. Despite his above average intelligence, the mind of a warrior did not reside between his temples. He snorted. "I am *not* exactly waddling, Ms. Braddock."

  


Betsy huffed in a flippant fashion, "It looks like it from up here." Gary suddenly vanished from sight, phasing his body into energy, the drone's holographic blade cleaving the air where he had been, while Gary reappeared an instant later, impaling the simulated opponent with his own blade, making it fade, ducking immediately to dodge the flying leap the next drone, which had just appeared, an extra gift from the tutor in at the controls, had taken towards him. Gary muttered again, a bit of a late riposte. "Then maybe you need your contacts."

  


Indignation made him moody. Several things made him moody, actually, but indignation was the culprit today. Her bioelectrical signature went through the same sort of weird shifting he couldn't identify, she must have crossed through the shadows down to the Danger Room floor. "I don't wear contacts, Mr. Davis."

  


Without offering a greeting or any sort of note he was aware of her presence, Gary caught the drone's holographic matrix in an electromagnetic field, paralyzing it, as he stabbed the energy blade through it. He abruptly turned to face his all too eager 'drill sergeant.' Eyeing her with a sardonic smirk as she ripsotes his grumbling, his only response was : "Really?"

  


Betsy's psy-blade emerges from her left wrist as it used to, as opposed to the psychic katana she often uses. Tossing up a brief psychic barrier with the briefest of thoughts, she held another droid in place, slicing through it with a magenta fizzle, the psy-blade coming to stop quite near Gary. "Really."

  


Gary snorted as the sun-yellow blades fade to nothingness. An amused smirk crossed the lower half of his face, as he asked "So, come to tell me how poorly I am doing? Or is there another reason from descending the ivory tower?"

  


Betsy's proud chin tilted up as she regarded him with a cool expression. "Actually, I'm not quite the evil harpy you make me out to be, Mr. Davis, I came down to get a little exercise myslf." Gary's own smirk stayed in place. "Harpy? Actually, I am living down the indignation of being put on the same level with the waterfoul in the pond outside."

  


Betsy placed her hands on her hips, suppressing a chuckle as she deadpanned "Well, you did look like a duck, wings flapping madly about and all..."

  


Arching an eyebrow, Gary was almost aghast. "Wings? I am no Worthington, Ms. Braddock." Betsy scoffed suddenly, chin tilting upwards just a bit more. "Do be glad of that, dahling. I'd feel ever so sorry for anyone even resembling that sodding twit."

  


Gary smirked again. "Blue is not my color." Gesturing towards the computer-laden control room, the circuits came alive, running a new program, precise electromagnetic manipulation allowing for directed input from the Danger Room floor. Turning to the British ninja, he regarded her solemnly. "Any preferences?"

  


Betsy responded in a wholly different mood, her teasing and tolerating mood frozen over. Raising a cold brow, she nodded. "Indeed. I feel quite like severely injuring said Worthington." Gary arched an eyebrow, but shrugging, he complied, and a pair of winged men appeared in the air. Answering her questioning glance, he shrugged again. "I have to keep myself occupied as well."

  


The smile that emerged across Elisabeth Braddock's face was purely predatory, and she ceased to be the cultured aristocrat she was by birth, and became entirely the cold, calculating assassin that was her profession. Dropping to a crouch, -gracefully-, she remained coiled, awaiting the perfect time to spring.

  


Gary lifted gently into the air, his boots lifting from the metal-plated flooring, utilizing more EM fields to keep him that way, to face off against his own opponent. Fighting on ground he was not comfortable in would be more interesting. He called down to the woman on the ground below him, noting matter-of-factly, "I am not sure who will be in more trouble. Me, for going along and prgramming Warren as an opponent, or you, for exhibiting such a desire to pound him flat. I suppose the issue is moot now though"

  


Betsy was as still as stone while the program cycled through its initial routines, her only answer to Gary a quirked brow. She was in work mode now, lacking the drive to make quips or commentary. She was here for one thing. And that was to eliminate her opponent. Even if it was a version of her long-time ex-lover. And as that figure swooped towards her, she remained still, staring straight ahead, the katana named Green Destiny poised to kill.

  


Hologram or not, Warren Worthington was amazingly fast, even in the enclosed space of the Danger Room. Gary, using his mastery over EM fields, could simulate flight as well, yet not with all of the stately grace the winged man could. What did it matter though? Flight was not his power. A miniature lightning storm erupted from Gary's body, stunning the hologram, which plummeted to the ground, pulling out of its dive just before contact with the floor. It was a start, Gary thought.

  


Betsy's oppontent soared closer, until it seemed she would be brutally knocked to the ground by a huge extended wing. Narrowing her amethyst eyes was her warning to the program, and as if suddenly jolted to life, her lithe form sprang into action. Mere seconds later, her sword was bloodied, a crimson-splattered hunk of snow-white wing crashing to the floor, and the programmed Warren crumpling alongside it. As for Psylocke, she had at some point amongst this returned to her crouch, to stand silent and still, her expression ice-cold.

  


The ebony-cloaked man noted his colleague had already downed her opponent. Frowning, he could not help but wonder about what seems to be a rocky past between Worthington and Braddock. Pondering for a brief moment, he decideed that the best therapy sometimes is taking out frustrations on one's own pillow. The hologram he faced certainly had the feathers down pat. Maybe Betsy would appreciate another shot.

  


Gary concentrated, creating a positively charged EM field inside the other hologram, transforming it into a virtual lightning rod. The electrical discharge sprang from Gary's outstretched fingers, striking the drone, which simulated reality almost perfectly, falling unconscious as it plummeted again, this time towards Betsy. "Incoming, Betsy!" She had a morbid bloodlust against this Mr. Worthington, but somehow, he didn't believe it was not without reason.

  


Betsy watched intently, her eyes locked on the writhing figure of Angel. Ironic, because an angel, he was not. Were she a less-hardened woman, the look even the hologram exhibited would have appeared to be one begging mercy. She was not a less-hardened woman. Uncoiling again all in an instant, she dropped, rolled, and crouched, her blade singing through the air to decapitate the hologram as her fatality.

  


The program's hologram fizzled out of existence the moment she dealt the blow, leaving her poised after the death-strike over and invisible enemy corpse. If anyone mistook Elisabeth "Psylocke" Braddock for a pampered rich girl, or even doubted her psionic capabilities, they would sorely regret neglecting to consider her an assassin. She guided her blade back to it's original position, and she rose to her full height, eyeing the place where the slain Worthington had lain.

  


Gary lands silently on the flooring behind Betsy. There was a palpable tension hanging in the air, and Gary had never been one who threw words around well, especially in these types of scenarios. He merely regarded her quietly, his cloak settling quietly around him. He frowned, shocked as Betsy muttered a dark, private, "Serves you right," turning her back on the vacant floor, raising a brow, her visage holding a deadliness in it's apparent serenity.

  


So many questions arise from her behavior. Gary was much more aware of her undeniable skill in the martial arts than many, but she'd never seemed quite so....icy in its use. Icy was a term people applied to himself. Simply arching an eyebrow, he squelched his curiosity, asking only "Are you all right?"

  


The stone-faced woman that leaves is nothing like the Elisabeth that entered the training simulator moments before. It usually frightened people seeing this change in her for the first time, although she suspected that would not be the case with Gary. Her only indication that she had even heard him was a slight, formal bow of her upper body. She turned then, to exit the room.

  


Gary knew the mannerism well. He wore it himself almost every day of his life. He never even turned around, speaking in a muted fashion. "I'm sorry." Sorry she had to go through the sorts of traumas that made a person into the unfeeling persona that had just passed him by, regardless how well it was hidden.

  


The halls were not exactly vacant, even at the late hour. Remington LeBeau was strolling towards the Danger Room, hunting for a cigarette in his pocket, idly wishing he'd brought his armor with him as he keys open the door. Not paying attention to where he was going, he nearly barreled into the departing Betsy, busily hunting his pockets for his collapsed bo staff.

  


Remy started in suprise, exclaiming "Betsy! Didn't 'spect to find you in dere at dis time of night, cheri." Betsy neatly sidestepped the collision, merely acknowledging the Cajun's presence with a slight nod and a murmured, "Gambit." as she stalked onwards. Inside, it terrified her when she became like this. But it wasn't a condition she controlled. She needed to meditate.

  


Remy blinked, spotting the cloaked man standing stock-still in the Danger Room, and a hint of the darkened and cold expression on face of the beautiful assassin who had turned him down countless times' as she slunk away. "Uh...did Remy interrupt sometin?"

  


Dark Cloak, moreso than Gary, at any rate, turned on his heel, moving towards the exit, his bootheels ringing on the metallic flooring. "Nothing was interrupted, Mr. LeBeau, it just seems a few ghosts were disturbed."

  


Remy nodded, and trying to make the best of the somewhat odd circumstances, asked in a male-to-male sense - "Well, Remy guess it be a bad idea to go an' see if Psylocke free for a nightcap or sometin, non?" Gary snorted in amusement. "Only if you don't wish to sire children in the future." Remy half winced, curious. "Man. She not receptive, but not usually DAT non-receptive. What ghosts you disturb, mon ami?"

  


Gary didn't exactly wear a black cloak because he was an all-too-open blabbermouth. "I am not sure myself, but it is not your business, nor is it mine. It would be my recommendation to leave it at that."

  


Remy snorted in a mildly humourous, self-pitiful fashion, ever one to joke at a completely inopportune time. "Hmph. Everyone tryin' ta keep Remy's life borin', eh?" The Cajun paused, grumbling a moment later. "I gonna go watch 'Les Miserables' again. Den my problems seem a bit better."

  


Gary shrugged, noting the recent bruise on the Cajun's cheek. "Who said I have to try?" He departs down the hallway, wearing a slight grin. Muttering again, Gambit shook his head. "Remy heard 'dat," he says to himself, before strolling down towards the stairs.

  
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Betsy slunk into her quarters, reeling internally against the fit she seemed to be caught in. Uniform was replaced with lavendar silk kimono, and it was with much turmoil in her mind that she escaped to her section of the garden, her secluded place of meditation. Bonsai, rock fountains and cherry blossom trees, all kindly maintained by Ororo, lent to the calming imitation of a Japanese garden.

  


Beside a whispering stream, she crossed her legs, closed her eyes, and lifted herself telekinetically off the pebbled path. The serene spiritualist. Another of the personalities she unintentionally conveyed. She was different things to different people. Fiercly loyal friend, passionate lover, bitter enemy, the silent ninja, the lethal assassin.

  


All of these things, and she still didn't know who she was. Few people knew about the incidents leading to this Asian body her mind inhabited, and even less knew how intense a disorientation she still felt about it. She'd never even confessed these things to Warren, her lover of two years.

  


She would remain there, late into the night, posed and hovering silently over her stream. No one would look for her, she knew, no one would be waiting in her bed for her to curl up to when she returned to her darkened, lavendar scented suite. Coldly, she thinks she doesn't care.

  
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The ebony-cloaked man perched comfortably on a good-sized boulder, far from the mansion. Being able to travel as energy certainly cut down on trip time. Being far away from the noisy cities was always quieting, very peaceful. He did not meditate, much as Betsy was doing now, but rather, he listened to what his mutant senses could hear. Ambient energy was like a symphony no one could hear. The way the Earth's magnetosphere ordered itself, the way the surrounding temperature was always trying to keep itself uniform. It was harmonious.

  


He had apparently managed to land an unintentional telling blow on one of the weak points in Betsy's emotional armor, and something seemed to have escaped her careful constraints. A frown creases his face. In a sense, he was responsible for her current mindset. He had brought up the subject of Warren Worthington the Third. Why was it that she hated him so much, so much so that she would turn into a heartless killer, supposedly in memory of some grief that he had caused her. He'd met their daughter, Nora, and she had mentioned something about abandonment, and that had caught his attention, being abandoned by his own father as a child. In that context, all of Betsy's icy mannerisms made perfect sense.

  


At any rate, he would have to be watchful. It was his fault that she had been forcefully reminded of her past, and he would have to make sure no one else suffered a fate similar to that of the holographic Warrens in the Danger Room.


End file.
